_The Election_, a humorous poem, _Strafford_, a tragedy, and
_Richard Coeur de Lion_, a serio-comic poem of which three books out of
eight were _pub._ His memory, perpetuated in a remarkable memoir by
Carlyle, lives rather by what he was than by anything he did. His
character and intellect appear to have exercised a singular influence on
the eminent men he numbered among his friends.

STERNE, LAURENCE (1713-1768).--Novelist, _s._ of an officer in the army,
and the great-grandson of an Archbishop of York, was _b._ at Clonmel,
where his father's regiment happened to be stationed, and passed part of
his boyhood in Ireland. At the age of 10 he was handed over to a
relation, Mr. Sterne of Elvington in Yorkshire, who put him to school at
Halifax, and thereafter sent him to Camb. He entered the Church, a
profession for which he was very indifferently fitted, and through family
influence procured the living of Sutton, Yorkshire. In 1741 he _m._ a
lady--Miss Lumley--whose influence obtained for him in addition an
adjacent benefice, and he also became a prebendary of York. It was not
until 1760 that the first two vols. of his famous novel, _Tristram
Shandy_, appeared. Its peculiar and original style of humour, its
whimsicality, and perhaps also its defiance of conventionality, and even
its frequent lapses into indecorum, achieved for it an immediate and
immense popularity. S. went up to London and became the lion of the day.
The third and fourth vols. appeared in 1761, the fifth and sixth in 1762,
the seventh and eighth in 1765, and the last in 1767. Meanwhile he had
_pub._ the _Sermons of Mr. Yorick_ (1760), and his remaining work, _The
Sentimental Journey_ appeared in 1768. From the time of his finding
himself a celebrity his parishioners saw but little of him, his time
being passed either in the gaieties of London or in travelling on the
Continent. Latterly he was practically separated from his wife and only
_dau._, to the former of whom his behaviour had been anything but
exemplary. His health, which had begun to give way soon after his
literary career had commenced, finally broke down, and he fell into a
consumption, of which he _d._ in London on March 18, 1768, utterly alone
and unattended. His body was followed to the grave by one coach
containing his publisher and another gentleman; and it was exhumed and
appeared in a few days upon the table of the anatomical professor at
Camb. He _d._ in debt, but a subscription was r